


tethered

by asweetepilogue



Series: Sugar & Spice Bingo [8]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Bets & Wagers, Bondage, Dom/sub Undertones, Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Light Bondage, M/M, Rope Bondage, Screen Reader Compatible, Screen Reader Friendly, Sugar and Spice Witcher Bingo, Trust, Vulnerability, it's not sexy until it is, jaskier's kink is geralt putting faith in him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-19 02:49:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29743848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asweetepilogue/pseuds/asweetepilogue
Summary: Jaskier bets Geralt that he can’t rip out of his bonds if Jaskier ties him up. This calls for a demonstration.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Sugar & Spice Bingo [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2100630
Comments: 14
Kudos: 180
Collections: Done Reading(the Good Stuff), Sugar and Spice Witcher Bingo





	tethered

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: bondage

“You’re going to have to tie me up before the hunt,” Geralt says, and Jaskier’s brain screeches to a halt. 

He’s leaning on Roach, both his arms thrown across her saddle as he waits for Geralt to get done carefully looking at the sign posts nailed to the pole on the edge of the road. They’ve been traveling towards a little town south of Vizima for a few days, one neither of them have ever been to. Geralt would never admit it, but Jaskier is almost certain that they’d been fully lost for a full half a day before they’d found an area the witcher recognized again. It’s fine; he doesn’t mind the detour, getting to see more of the Continent. But they’re meant to be picking up a job - well, Geralt is, at least. They’ve not talked about the job itself yet, and until this point Jaskier had assumed that he would be shoved into an inn the second they arrived so that Geralt could go take care of whatever the beast was. 

Which is why it’s so startling to hear it brought up now. And what’s this about tying up? “Pardon me?” Jaskier asks, pushing himself away from Roach in pure shock. 

Geralt doesn’t look at him as he turns back towards them, pulling a small roll of parchment from his pack and unrolling it to consult their makeshift map. “Pretty sure the creature is a fleder. Kind of lesser vampire. Stupid, but not stupid enough to show itself to a witcher. They’re hard to track, especially in their own territory. It’ll be easier to make myself look vulnerable and draw it out that way.”

“So you want me to tie you up and leave you sitting in the woods like a steak on a platter?” Jaskier asks, aghast.

Geralt sighs, finally looking up at him. His expression is exasperated. “It’s a _trap_ , Jaskier. I won’t actually be in danger.”

Jaskier walks around Roach to Geralt’s side, dodging a nip as he passes by the horse’s head. “I’m sorry, you’re saying you won’t be in danger when you’re physically restrained by rope and about to be attacked by a _vampire_? Geralt, I’m less than impressed by your infamous witcher tactics this time around. How do you propose to escape from the ropes before the thing rips you limb from limb? And why do _I_ have to be the one to tie you up?”

Geralt sighs, rolling the map up and easing it back in his pack. He shoves his foot in a stirrup and remounts Roach, urging her on with a light kick of his heel. Jaskier scrambles to follow, adjusting his lute strap on his shoulder and jogging after the pair. 

Geralt seems to have determined that Jaskier’s prodding doesn’t deserve an answer. “I’m not going to do it,” Jaskier continues after a moment, walking alongside Geralt’s knee. He glances up at the man through his eyelashes, suspicious. “I truly didn’t know you were this stupid, witcher. Lucky I’m here to keep you from doing wildly idiotic things on the job, it’s a wonder you lasted this long-”

“It’s not stupid,” Geralt grunts, and Jaskier can see him roll his eyes in the movement of his head. “I can tear through the ropes easily, and I’ll hear it coming. It’s a sound strategy to draw it out.”

Jaskier blinks rapidly. “Hold on, you can _tear through the ropes?_ I know I’ve made several sweeping claims about your impressive witcher strength, but even I have a hard time believing that. Maybe I could tie them badly, or something. But even you can’t tear through a rope an inch thick.”

“Yes I can,” Geralt says simply, like it’s nothing. 

Jaskier splutters. “No you cannot! Come on. Come on! There is no way.”

“I’ll prove it.” Geralt looks down at him. There’s annoyance and amusement waring on his face, clear in the furrow between his brows and the twitch at the corner of his mouth. “When we make camp.”

“You’re going to let me tie you up so you can prove you can rip through layers and layers of rope,” Jaskier clarifies. Despite his misgivings, he feels a slight thrill of something like excitement go through him. Geralt, letting himself get all tied up, letting _Jaskier_ put him in such a vulnerable position… 

It’s a bad idea. Jaskier does, on most days, a very good job of keeping his feelings for his best friend under wraps. Geralt surely knows that Jaskier is attracted to him; in the early years of their relationship, Jaskier hadn’t made it a secret, but Geralt never rose to any of his overeager flirtations. After a while he’d shrugged it off and stopped making obvious passes at the surly witcher, but his attraction had never waned. In fact, it only seemed to grow more persistent as his fondness for Geralt blossomed from friendship into something more. Geralt is funny and noble and kind, and has the body of a deity. It was inevitable that Jaskier would fall a little bit in love with him. 

So imagining a situation in which he has Geralt on his knees, subdued while Jaskier ties him up like a midwinter present, is both deeply thrilling and just as deeply troubling. 

Bad idea.

“Yes,” Geralt says.

“Well fine,” Jaskier gulps. “But I’m betting you 10 gold you can’t do it.”

Geralt smirks like a man who’s already won. “You’re on.”

*

This was a mistake, Jaskier thinks.

They make camp quickly after their conversation, Geralt not wanting to linger long on the road after dark without a campfire. This part of Temeria is thickly forested, and packs of wild dogs and wolves like to linger in the trees and attack easy targets. They find a decent clearing a ways off the road, and the two of them quickly put their things in order, years of traveling together making their evening routine smooth and effortless. 

This time, however, instead of Jaskier moving to sit by the fire in the dusk light and compose or write while Geralt goes over his potions and sharpens his swords, they end up kneeling with a coiled stretch of hempen rope between them. It’s just the one Geralt keeps in his pack, in case he needs to do something valiant like scale a cliff face or pull a child from a raging river. Jaskier isn’t clear on the details. But they have rope, and Geralt is knelt before him on his knees, looking at Jaskier with one eyebrow cockily raised. 

Jaskier swallows and picks up the rope. “So, uh,” he says. His voice sounds too rough, choked as it is with his sudden onslaught of nerves. “How should I…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Geralt interrupts. He doesn’t look nervous at all, the bastard. “Just make it tight.” 

Jaskier fumbles to pick up the rope, trying not to let that echo around in his head overmuch. He stands, stepping around behind Geralt’s back and taking a moment to look over him. He’s seen Geralt kneeling before, innumerable times. It’s the same position he uses for meditation, feet pressed into the dirt and shoulders ramrod straight. But something about this situation makes it feel different, because it _is._ Geralt is kneeling for him, waiting patiently for Jaskier to truss him up, his wrists crossed behind his back instead of resting on his broad thighs as they normally would be. Jaskier reaches out to touch his shoulder, and Geralt lets out a small breath. 

Maybe they’re both affected by this. 

Jaskier shakes himself, focusing on the task at hand. He loops the rope around Geralt’s front a few times, binding his arms down. He’s no novice when it comes to tying knots, practical or otherwise, so it should be quick work to bind Geralt’s limbs. Yet he finds himself lingering, gently pulling the rope taught and tying it off neatly at the small of Geralt’s back, letting his fingers drag a bit across his forearms as he moves to circle the rope around his wrists. Something about the harsh material against the pale skin just below Geralt’s palm makes the witcher seem more delicate than he is, an optical illusion that softens his edges. Jaskier’s breath comes quicker as he ties Geralt’s hands together, leaning so close that his breath ghosts over the back of Geralt’s neck. Geralt shifts, almost a shiver, and Jaskier has to pause to regain his composure. 

The amount of trust Geralt is displaying now is… overwhelming. The sight of him is lovely, no doubt, and Jaskier’s mind whirls dizzyingly with possibilities. How Geralt would look spread out on a bed, knots of rope up his thighs, crossing over his broad chest and highlighting his tits. Arms and legs tied to the bedpost, spread out for Jaskier’s pleasure, fully at his mercy. Jaskier feels flush with it, but it’s nothing compared to the warmth that sits in his chest just knowing that Geralt would never, in a thousand years, allow anyone else to do this. This is only for him, even if it’s not for anything more than to prove a point. 

Finally he finishes his knots, tying off the last one at Geralt’s ankles with a flourish. It’s not his best work, not fancy or intricate by any means, but as Jaskier looks down at Geralt’s half-prone form, he thinks it’s one of the most stunning sights he’s ever laid eyes on. 

He circles slowly back around to face Geralt again, crouching down so that their eyes are on the same level. Geralt’s eyes are almost hazy, and Jaskier realizes that his pupils are blown wide, the gold nearly eclipsed entirely. A few strands of hair have escaped his ponytail to frame his face, and a pretty pink flush is spread across his cheekbones. He looks, Jaskier thinks with a sense of doom, fucked out, and Jaskier hasn’t even done anything to him. Forcing himself not to lick his lips, Jaskier instead clears his throat awkwardly and croaks, “So?”

Geralt visibly shakes himself, blinking rapidly. His eyes lose some of that clouded quality, lucidity returning. If he didn’t know Geralt as well as he did, Jaskier would think the witcher was uncomfortable, but he can sense no tension in the broad stretch of his shoulders or in the line of his jaw. He looks relaxed, almost. Jaskier doesn’t know how he could be; he himself feels like there’s lightning crawling under his skin, urging him to reach out and _do_ something. He isn’t even sure what. 

Geralt takes a few breaths, chest visibly constrained by the ropes - and isn’t that something, Jaskier thinks feverishly - and nods to himself. He seems to test the ropes for a moment, tensing and rolling his shoulders. He’s stripped down to only the dark cotton shirt he wears beneath his armor, and the lighter rope stands out starkly against the fabric. “Right,” he says, softly, more to himself than anything. And then he tenses, the muscles of his arms bulging against the lines of the rope. 

Jaskier’s mouth goes completely dry, his stomach swooping at the sight. He doesn’t actually get many opportunities to see Geralt’s supposedly great strength at work. Logically he knows that half the things Geralt fights on a regular basis would have killed him fifty times over if he couldn’t match their strength. But Jaskier rarely gets to see those kinds of fights; Geralt lets him tag along on nekker hunts and the occasional insectoid extermination, but when shit gets serious Jaskier stays behind. So aside from a few memorable occasions, he hasn’t had the chance to see any displays of Geralt’s strength, especially not in such a controlled environment.

Now he watches raptly as Geralt hunches forward slightly and strains against the rope, and within seconds the fibrous material is shredding before Jaskier’s very eyes. His jaw drops as he watches Geralt rip out of the layers of hemp as if they were no stronger than silk. When he’s finished, the rope lies in tatters around him, torn apart in half a dozen places. He looks up at Jaskier, the light flush from before darkened by the exertion, and Jaskier thinks that under his shirt there must be vivid red lines pressed into his skin in a pattern of Jaskier’s design. 

He wants to see it so badly it makes his toes curl. 

“That,” he says thinly, “was. Uh. That was. Wow.”

“Hmm,” Geralt agrees, amusement coloring his tone, but he’s just sitting there, breathing a little hard. His eyes flicker away from Jaskier, and the bard can’t read the furrow of his brow like he normally can. “You owe me 10 gold.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Jaskier says. He doesn’t feel like he’s lost though. Quite the opposite, in fact. “I’m still not a fan of the plan. I want it said.”

“You won’t have to tie my legs up when we do it for the monster,” Geralt says. 

“I don’t want to tie you up at _all_ ,” Jaskier says, which is a lie that burns his tongue as it leaves his mouth. He wants to tie Geralt up very much, actually, in any position Geralt will allow, as often as he can. But he doesn’t think that would go over incredibly well. 

“You can keep them loose, then,” Geralt grunts, pushing to his feet. “It doesn’t matter. Like you _just saw_ , I can get out of it.” He’s still avoiding Jaskier’s gaze. 

“You sure can,” Jaskier says, blowing out a breath. He gets to his own feet, moving slowly on wobbly knees. It probably shouldn’t have winded him this much, just tying his best friend up for what was supposed to be essentially a bit of a laugh. It was supposed to be funny, he thinks desperately, watching Geralt walk over to check on the fire, nudging one of the logs with his booted foot. It wasn’t supposed to leave him feeling hot under the collar and like Geralt just gave him something infinitely fragile and precious. 

Jaskier follows him, drawn like a moth after a lantern. He steps up beside Geralt and finds his eyes drawn to the place where the rope had ruffled the smooth line of his shirt. There’s a small tear, probably from the friction of the rope. The skin underneath is an angry pink, and with a head entirely clear of any thought, Jaskier reaches out and brushes his fingers across the small gap. Geralt’s skin is warm under his chilled fingertips. 

Geralt’s head whips around towards him, and his eyes finally meet Jaskier’s. They’re still dark, pupils blown wide and wanting, and Jaskier feels a shiver run up the length of his spine. 

Maybe, he thinks, it wouldn’t go over so badly after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! this is my second to last s&s fic, with the last one probably going up on Friday. 
> 
> follow me at [tumblr!](asweetprologue.tumblr.com)


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